"I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?"
- Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 2
'Bastard' has been inscribed on Hero's skin since before she could read. Many such marks litter her body, but this is the deepest cut, a scar across her left breast.
"Who will want her with such a mark?" Her mother despairs, her distress instilling panic in the listening child.
Her father's answer is firm, "They will not see it until it is too late."
No one explains the word to Hero, but she gathers it is something wicked.
Her mother squeezes her wrist tight enough to hurt, reminding Hero in strict tones that the word must be covered and is never to be repeated. Her father jokes about it, calls her his changeling, his voice light and his eyes sharp (Hero giggles, but notices how her mother's mouth pinches). Ursula, her serving woman, fusses with her collar, ensuring the word remains hidden.
Alone, Hero pulls down the cotton, tracing the jagged letters as if she might soothe their edges.
'Bastard', she comes to understand, means someone unwanted.
She presses a hand over the mark, her heart pumping below, "I want you."
:-x-:
It is said when an insult cuts a person deep, it appears on their soulmate's skin. These are called soulmarks.
Soulmarks are a private matter. Often the words that leave a mark are unfit for polite conversation and covering marks, by cloth or powder, is encouraged. This makes it difficult to find your soulmate.
Soulmates tend to be viewed in a romantic light — what the ballads call true love. To share this bond with someone — to know the intimacies of another's soul, their greatest flaws and deepest vulnerabilities — is considered sacred and revered by poets and philosophers alike. Despite this, most wedded couples are not soulmates.
Maybe because when the stars decided to tie two souls together, they did not consider factors like wealth or station or distance in-between. Maybe because having another know your worst self is too terrifying for most.
What's more, a soulmark does not guarantee happiness. Bonds can be rejected and even unrequited, with one person carrying another's words without receipt. Even those soulmates who manage to find each other may prove unsuited over time.
But Hero is a dreamer. She knows whoever her soulmate is, she will love them. In one form or another.
Her skin is scattered with marks, like constellations across the night sky. She knows them all.
whelp
filth
vermin
mutt
scum
motherless
She soothes her finger across this last one, her own mother recently passed, the soulmarks wilting from her father's skin.
"We are the same."
:-x-:
When your soulmate dies, all their words disappear.
It is likewise rumoured that a mark fades when it loses its sting. Hero's marks never fade but darken into scars. The phrasing changes but the words remain the same.
mumbling
worthless
misbegotten
whoreson
piece of shit
son of a bitch
Ursula would be shocked if she knew of her ward's growing vocabulary, but Hero does not share her words with anyone. Not even Beatrice, her cousin and confidant.
These are her soulmate's marks, his secrets to shield. She will not reveal him to anyone.
:-x-:
feral
lowbred
stupid
illegitimate
freak
:-x-:
"I need you to insult me."
Beatrice stares, appalled. "Hero — no, I could not."
"Please, Beatrice. You are so shrewd in your assessments. I know I annoy you sometimes. You must be able to think of something that will cut."
Beatrice looks stricken, but then her gaze narrows, that clever mind working. "You want your soulmate to see it."
Hero presses her hand to her side where a new mark has appeared.
'...soulless…'
She has heard it said that bastards do not have souls. Hero thinks the mark over her heart is proof enough against this and dismisses the rest of that discourse. It is so cruel — and for something a child has no control over…
She knows her star-bound has a soul, but does he? She is certain someone must have said something to her that left a mark. But she has lived a blithe existence and never received close to the abuse he does.
"I do not want him to think he is alone."
Beatrice softens. She does not care for soulmates and is content to ignore the marks on her skin (Hero has glimpsed a few — unremarkable, loudmouth), but she knows what it means to Hero.
She sighs. "You have a good heart."
"Thank you, but— "
"But you have no spine," comes the sharp rebuke. "You bow to your father's will, no more than his dancing doll. Where there should be spirit, there is string. You mistake obedience for character and thus will never be the author of your own fate."
Hero swallows, feeling like a stone sinking through cold water, Beatrice's words crackling in her ears.
Beatrice's face transforms in horror and Hero knows she has not hidden her reaction as well as she hoped. "Hero — I am sorry — I did not mean — "
Hero takes a breath, pulling her threads back together, and offers a weak smile, "I am well, Beatrice. It is what I wanted."
Her cousin looks unconvinced. "It is not true. I only said it because you asked me to."
"I know. All is well."
But they both know there is truth behind Beatrice's words. She has never put it so harshly but Hero is aware of what Beatrice thinks of her docile cousin. Hero envies her lion-heart. Next to Beatrice, she will always be the mouse.
"Never ask that of me again," Beatrice commands, unnaturally severe.
And, of course, Hero abides.
But later, in the mirror, she spies '...insolent brat…' in proud letters around her hip and laughs at their mismatched souls.
He received the message.
:-x-:
disappointment
nuisance
dirty blood
unwanted
mistake
:-x-:
Hero touches her marks in her own secret ritual, wondering if he senses the warmth of her fingers on his skin. Sometimes she does it to reassure herself. If her soulmate can endure this abuse then she too can be strong.
In her head, she repeats the silent mantra, hand hovering over her heart, and wills herself to be brave: bastard, freak, scum…
At night, Hero curls in a ball, hugging herself as if she can protect him from the world, holding his seams together.
Her fist presses against her breast, whispering, "I am here. You are not alone."
:-x-:
wretch
mongrel
sullen
rotten
pest
:-x-:
She is familiar with all the words on her skin, though some she understands better than others. Eavesdropping on the workers and the townsfolk, she gleans a few more meanings. None of them good.
The one that puzzles her most is the simple 'half-brother' arced around her shoulder.
She brushes her fingers over the word, tracing them back to 'Bastard', 'misbegotten', 'motherless', and begins to draw a picture…
:-x-:
knave
sinister
leech
sour
demon
:-x-:
'unlovable' coils around her wrist and Hero kisses the place where it passes over her pulse.
"I will love you."
She hides the mark under a ribbon, safe and cherished.
:-x-:
wastrel
miscreant
disgrace
good-for-naught
unclean
:-x-:
Time passes and fewer marks appear. She does not know if this means her soulmate is less afflicted or the words no longer affect him so. She hopes it is the former.
Then, one spring, her skin flourishes like the fields in bruising letters:
villain
traitor
murderer
This last word slips between her ribs, slicing through blood and sinew to pierce her heart…
She is next aware of Margaret's panicked voice above her, sprawled on the floor. Her hand flies to her ribcage, but her chemise conceals the dreadful words. Margaret eases her into bed and fetches her water. Her father is informed and summons a doctor, who diagnoses Hero with hysteria and advises she remain in bed for the next few days.
Hero does not have the strength to protest, staring at the ceiling, scraping her fingers over the familiar letters — Bastard, Bastard, Bastard.
Was she naïve for believing in the goodness of her soulmate, despite the evidence that cluttered her skin? Should she have heeded them as warnings instead of dismissing them as unjust?
She flits from 'worthless' to 'unlovable'.
No. Her soulmate had been the victim once. But now he has victims of his own. She does not prescribe much to blood, except when it stains your hands.
She weeps into her pillow, feeling as if it were her who has had a dagger plunged through her back. A killer, her soulmate is a killer.
:-x-:
Hero tells no one of this terrible revelation. Not even Beatrice, who sits at her bedside, entertaining her with comedic recountings of the days' events and the local gossip, her all-seeing eyes scanning Hero's pallid complexion.
Eventually, Hero grows tired of her bedroom walls and ventures outside. The gardens are in full bloom yet the world seems strangely muted, colourless. She can find no solace in the birdsong, nor any warmth in the sun's golden rays. She languishes in an ocean of grey, a weight around her ankles pulling her down, down…
And then she hears them.
"What do you think will become of the traitor?"
"I hope they hang the bastard. That will teach 'em not to reach above their station."
Hero creeps closer to the rows, the workers unaware of their mistress listening in.
"It is what he deserves for raising arms against his half-brother."
"Aye, a treacherous snake that Don John."
:-x-:
Hero goes to her uncle. He is most likely to be honest and least likely to be suspicious.
"Uncle Antonio, is there a war on?"
He looks surprised before his face turns reassuring. "You have heard the rumours. Fear not, the conflict will not reach here."
"But it is true… the Prince's brother marches against him?"
"Yes, Don John. He seeks to overthrow our good Prince and steal Aragon's throne."
Hero's hands clench in her skirts, resisting the urge to touch her marks. "Then… he is a traitor."
Her uncle answers with uncharacteristic sombreness, "Yes, they all are."
"What if… what if the Prince loses?"
Antonio sucks in a breath, glancing around. "It is treason to speak such. But if by some ill-twist of fate, Don John is victorious, it will do him no good. He has no legitimate claim to the throne and will not have the people's love. There will always be challengers."
"But…" Hero knows she is on dangerous grounds but is unable to hold her tongue, "...his father was the former prince."
"His mother was not the Prince's wife," her uncle answers gently. "He will always be an outcast."
"Then why fight, if the most he will gain is an illusion?"
Her uncle cannot answer her. But she does not need him to. It is already written all over her skin
:-x-:
Hero sits in her bedchamber, tracing the familiar words —
Bastard
half-brother
illegitimate
accident
traitor
— running her fingers over the dark letters as if she can divine answers from them like a soothsayer scrying from bones.
It could be a coincidence…
There is no proof that this Don John is her soulmate.
But the words fit.
Her fingers hover over 'murderer'. If it is true… if her soulmate is Don John or another bastard traitor under his banner… then death is an inevitable element of war. An unpleasant, inglorious element — and for so little gain. But — if it is war then it is not cold-blood. Her own father was a soldier who slew men on the battlefield. If it does not tar him then it cannot stain her star-bound.
She chews her nails. His victims and their families will not see it such… but they would have been enemy soldiers seeking to kill him too. She shudders, nausea swirling in her stomach at the image of her soulmate bleeding out in the dirt…
No. NO. The thought repulses her and she squeezes her hand to her chest. That he might die, before she has even met him —
This is what hate does. She has never spared much thought for her soulmate's tormentors, her heart too full of love for him. But now she is furious — with them and with him. How much death, how many will suffer — mother's losing sons, wives becoming widows, children without a father — all because the world could not love a bastard?
"I will love you."
The promise she made long ago. But can she love him now? She wants the chance to find out, to know him, whoever he may be.
"Stay alive. Stay alive and find me."
:-x-:
Hero listens for any word on the war, but news is slow to reach Messina. She prays for her soulmate, for Don John, and the soldiers on both sides, willing the casualties to be few. Aloud, she expresses support for Don Pedro and wishes the conflict will end soon.
Though no one speaks such in her presence, she hears how the traitor is scorned and hugs herself tight, pleading every night for him to stay alive, stay alive.
She counts her marks, reassuring herself they are still there. She fears waking to find them gone… watching as they wither from her skin, ashes scattered in the wind.
Stay alive. Stay alive.
"Don Pedro is triumphant. His brother has been defeated."
At her father's proclamation, there are cheers and exclamations of relief around the banquet table. So no one hears as Hero's fork clatters from her hand.
"What will happen to him?"
The words are out of her mouth before she can think better.
Her father looks bemused. "To whom, sweet?"
"To Don John."
Her father glances at her uncle, sharing that look they do when they think her too fragile for the truth. Her stomach lurches.
"The Prince will decide what justice shall be served."
Hero's teeth clack together and she is silent for the rest of the evening.
:-x-:
Hero passes the next week in an agonising limbo, waiting on news of Don John's fate. Her only solace is her marks do not fade, 'traitor' burning bold as ever between her shoulder-blades.
If her family notices her solemn mood, they do not comment on it. They are all eager to hear of the war, which lives have been lost in the conflict. Distraction is much needed.
Hero paints on a smile and joins the others for a picnic, managing a few moments of forgetting when Beatrice's jests have her laughing in earnest, ribs-aching for a different reason. Still her thumb rubs the ribbon tied around her wrist, distracted.
She starts when the messenger arrives, nails biting into her thighs as she watches her father's eyes scan the missive.
"I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon comes this night to Messina."
"He is very near by this," the messenger informs, "he was not three leagues off when I left him."
"How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?"
"But few of any sort, and none of name."
"A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers."
Blood roars in Hero's ears. Those are fortunate numbers indeed, which means the losses must have been great for the opposing side. She brushes her bodice, 'murderer' concealed beneath. So much loss and for no gain.
Her father and the messenger continue to converse and she pads towards them in a trance.
"What of Don John?" Her soft voice rings through the clearing and a hush falls at the traitor's name. "What is his fate?"
The messenger peers at her, likely wondering what interest she could have in the villain.
"My daughter has a gentle heart and a great love for her family," her father intercedes. "She has prayed the Prince and his brother would reach a peaceful accord."
The messenger's face clears. "Ah, then the lady shall be pleased. The brothers have reconciled and a treaty drawn. Don John recognises Don Pedro as the rightful sovereign."
There are further cheers and Hero feels as if she can breathe for the first time in weeks. Reconciled, not scheduled for execution or imprisoned. Reconciled. Never has a word brought her more joy and she clasps her hand to her chest, fighting back the tears.
The messenger's next words stop her heart. "He too will be in attendance."
He says this to Leonato with a commiserating look, but Hero's thoughts have frozen, so she does not hear as Beatrice begins needling the messenger for information on a Signior Mountanto.
Here. Don John is coming here.
To Messina.
To her home.
The man who might be her soulmate.
She needs to wash.
She needs to change her dress.
She needs to figure out a plan to determine if he is her match.
Don John is coming here.
It is good everyone else is in high spirits, for Hero could not suppress her smile even if she tried.